I get it.

Getting feedback can sting. Watching people scroll past your passion project feels brutal. But here’s the thing: talking about your idea early is the best move you can make.

You prevent yourself from building for months only to discover nobody wants to pay for it. You avoid heading in the wrong direction without anyone telling you.

(And, because I know you are afraid of this, the chance of getting copied is so low that execution matters way more than secrecy)

So when you decide it’s time to talk about your product and maybe even land some pre-customers, here’s how to do it right.

The right way to launch before you're ready

I’ve seen posts about product launches work on LinkedIn and X.

With zero followers and with massive audiences.

The thing is, when you have something people want, it finds them. You just have to put your solution out there.

Post about and see what feedback you get.

Here’s how you do it:

Social media

You want to do this on the platform where your target audience lives. Be it Substack, X or LinkedIn, chose the one you know you can reach as many as possible.

Product recording

Show, don’t tell → Record your screen while walking people through how your product works and what you actually solve for them. The key: show the real tool, not a mockup. Even better if you zoom in on the exact part that creates the most value.

Bonus points if you show your face to create trust right away (e.g. Loom video).

Your story

Most posts I see go like this: “Hey I launched XYZ, register now here”… then crickets. You don’t want to make it salesy. People can smell that from miles away.

Instead, try one of these angles:

Tell a funny story about how you accidentally built something that solved your own problem

Celebrate the moment. “After months of grinding, I finally launched...” People love watching others win or celebrating with you.

Or you share something genuinely useful for your audience.

And always include a clear call to action so people know what to do next.

Landing page

Speaking of next steps. You need somewhere to send people. A place where your solution is explained, the value is clear, and there's an obvious next step like "Sign up free" or "Try it now.

Waitlist

If you’re mid-development and people can’t sign up yet, set up a waitlist. Let interested people drop their email. This also tells you how much real interest exists.

Two examples that crushed it

Mac Martine talked about RalphBlaster. His tweet hit 221k impressions and pulled in 750 waitlist signups just by showing his solution in action, he wrote about it here.

Cursor jumped on the GPT wave at the right moment. They built on the hype, showed a screen recording, and drove traffic straight to their site.

Takeaway

Stop hiding behind stealth mode. The feedback you get early will save you months of wasted work.

Here’s what happens when you share early:

• You find out if people actually care about what you’re building.

• You start building an audience while you build the product. By launch day, you already have people waiting.

• You get real feedback from potential customers, not just opinions from friends.

• You create momentum. Each post, each conversation, each signup compounds.

Like the examples show. Both shared early, both won.

AJ

PS: If you enjoyed this, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

Most of the time, typical growth tactics don’t work anymore.

A few years ago, it was enough to throw together a mediocre ebook and gate it by asking for user data to generate leads.

Today, you have to:

• Show the product in action

• Attract users

• Build a community

The following examples have gotten more creative.

They created small, additional tools that users engage with during a part of their customer journey.

This generates a kind of lead generation growth loop:

Customer looks to solve a minor problem (like creating an ad) → finds a simple free tool or generator → converts into a user of the main product.

What does this look like?

Launched by Lovable

Lovable became one of Europe’s fastest-growing startups, mostly through word of mouth, since its AI builder turns everyone into a developer. One of its growth tactics is that they also built their own Product Hunt clone. Builders can submit their apps here, while other users can upvote the projects they like. The top five projects each week receive 100 free Lovable credits, encouraging creators to keep building.

Why does this fuel the growth loop?

• Generates more users: Users see what others have built, which gives them ideas for their own projects. Since Lovable is just one click away, they can simply type in their prompt and start building.

• Gamification boosts retention: Submitting a project gives users a chance to win free credits. This definitely keeps some users engaged and motivated to chase the reward. I’ve even spoken to a few users who have built hundreds of small projects that can easily be submitted.

• Builds community and taps into the builder mindset: Builders who upload their projects can receive feedback in the comments, gain exposure, and attract early users. This alone is a strong reason to use Launched for your project—and, in turn, it motivates users to use Lovable.

Presentation Maker by Figma

In addition to its core business, Figma also offers a small but highly intuitive extra tool that allows users to easily create presentations without having to deal with PowerPoint or Google Slides.

Why does this fuel the growth loop?

• Creates visibility: The tool ranks quite high on Google when someone searches for how to create presentations. This attracts new users to Figma. Once a user starts using the presentation maker, they need to create an account, and Figma’s core tool is just one click away.

• Increases retention: It’s not only useful for new users but also for those already familiar with Figma. The tool appeals to an audience that’s used to working with Figma, helping keep them engaged. After all, why use clunky PowerPoint when you’re already used to intuitive Figma?

Tool Library by Softr

Softr is a no-code builder that allows you to create all kinds of tools. On their website, they feature a full library of very small tools. The crux? Every tool, and the entire page, is built with Softr itself.

Why does this fuel the growth loop?

• Demonstrates the tool’s capabilities: These small tools give users a taste of what’s possible with Softr. While they’re not overly complex, seeing that you can build tools like this without coding offers a compelling preview of the platform’s potential.

• Generates Traffic: Each of these tools ranks fairly high on Google. This likely drives a significant amount of traffic to Softr’s site. The best part is that these are all tools users need at some point in their customer journey, which means the right audience is landing on the page.

• Increases Conversions: On each tool’s page, there’s a detailed description along with a clear call to action. For example, on the NPS calculator page, there’s an explanation of what NPS is and how to use it (primarily for SEO purposes), along with a CTA that encourages users to try the tool, ultimately converting them.

Free Ad Maker by Adobe

While the Adobe Suite consists of fairly complex tools that can be quite pricey, Adobe also offers smaller tools on their site with a lower entry barrier to attract users who can then be upsold.

Why does this fuel the growth loop?

• Demonstrates the tool’s capabilities: When you click on "Create now," you land on a library with hundreds of beautifully designed ad visuals that you can edit and adapt to your needs. This showcases the tool’s design capabilities and helps convince users to explore what’s possible with Adobe.

• Increases conversions: Once you edit an ad, you need to create an account to download it. This allows Adobe to send you regular emails and nurture you until you’re ready to buy.

• Targets the right audience: If you’re looking at the ad maker, you’re likely already interested in design. This gives Adobe direct access to leads that fit their ideal target audience.

Logo Maker by WIX

The good old logo makers—this is a well-known example of this tactic. And even though there are many logo makers out there, I think this example from WIX is still a great one to include in this series.

Why does this fuel the growth loop?

• Attracts the right people: Anyone who needs a website also needs a logo. Since the logo maker ranks quite high on Google, the right audience likely ends up on WIX’s website through it.

• Conversions: As with similar tools, once you start using the logo maker, you're required to create an account.

• Value, value, value: In the past, creating a logo could be expensive. WIX’s logo maker offers logos for free with full commercial rights. This delivers real value to users, making them more willing to provide their data to access it. In turn, this allows WIX to nurture those leads.

Final Words

The days of crappy PDFs and eBooks are over. If you want to follow effective lead generation tactics, offer something your audience truly finds useful, like the examples above.

This is much more likely to generate leads that match your target audience, even if it’s just a small tool that solves one specific problem.

PS: If you enjoyed this experiment, please tap the like button and let me know in the comments below. Thank you! 💛

The holy grail when it comes to finding users: throw money at it, and everything will work out.

Wrong. Don’t do it.

Even worse - don’t do LinkedIn ads. You’ll burn a ton of money, especially if you haven’t reached product-market fit and you’re an indie maker.

But you might think LinkedIn is where you’ll reach your target audience, and you’ll want to take a look anyway… even if I warned you.

Then here’s the mistake we did what you still shouldn’t do.

Hypothesis

So, we thought we’d take one of our well-performing posts and simply “boost” it. LinkedIn offers this feature to get more eyeballs on your content.

And as every expert tells you to take a well-performing organic post and turn it into an ad, what could possibly go wrong?

I jumped into the feed, picked a post that aligned with our current effortst… hoping the included landing page link would drive more clicks and ultimately increase conversions.

Our hypothesis was:

If we boost a well-performing organic post, then we will see significantly more impressions and higher conversions in the end.

Experiment Design

So, we picked the post, hit "Boost," set up our target group, and thought we could get started.

Not with LinkedIn. The post included a couple of emojis too many for LinkedIn’s taste.

So, we removed them and hit "Boost" again. I allocated $500 to see how it would perform.

Results

This experiment ran from April 4 to April 16 (about 2 weeks).

We spent $482.71.

The ad generated 31,509 impressions and 230 clicks—resulting in a CTR of 0.73%.

We generated 0 leads from it.

Okay, maybe the landing page was bad. Fair.

But even the click-through rate was low for a tactic where every “expert” says to just take an organic post that performs well and turn it into an ad.

Takeaways

While we saw zero results from it, I wouldn’t completely say that it couldn’t work.

But boosting a post should be part of a larger campaign. And since you want to see fast results when building your own (side) projects, don’t use this tactic.

It’s not worth it for this purpose and costs too much. That $500 is better invested if you want to experiment with ads.

See you next time! 👋🏼

PS: If you enjoyed this experiment, please tap the like button and let me know in the comments below. Thank you! 💛

One thing that was on our minds: how do we get more people to actually fill out the form? Obvious goal, right?

We had a clear CTA and a well-designed page, but we realized there is something we might do wrong.

So, we came up with an idea.

Hypothesis

Our hypothesis we wanted to test was:

If we move the sign-up form from the bottom of the landing page to the middle, closer to the point where most users are still actively engaged, we can capture more conversions from:

A) people who are already convinced and just need a form within reach, and
B) people who might lose interest or drop off before ever reaching the bottom.

Experiment Design

We placed the same form (no changes to copy or fields) midway through the landing page, right after the section explaining the product’s core benefits.

It was styled to fit naturally with the flow of the content, and we kept the original form at the bottom as well, so users still had two chances to convert.

Results

This experiment ran from February 1 to February 16 (about 2 weeks).

When the form was placed only at the bottom of the page, 216 out of 2,570 page visitors saw it (about 10%).

When the form was placed in the middle of the page, 974 out of 2,228 visitors saw it (43.72%).

With the form at the bottom, we received 11 submissions, resulting in a 5.09% conversion rate (based on views).

With the form in the middle, we received 44 submissions from 974 views, resulting in a 4.52% conversion rate.

So, we saw a significant increase in form views when it was placed in the middle of the page… kind of obvious.

Although the conversion rate per viewer was slightly lower, this simple change in placement led to a much higher number of total submissions. With just copy/pasting it on a different position we generated more leads, making the experiment successful.

Takeaways

Most visitors don’t make it to the bottom of your landing page. So why place your main conversion point only there?

By simply moving the form higher, closer to the point of peak interest, we gave more people the chance to take action without scrolling further.

Sometimes, a small layout tweak is all it takes to unlock more value.

See you next time! 👋🏼

PS: If you enjoyed this experiment, please tap the like button and let me know in the comments below. Thank you! 💛

This probably sounds familiar to some of you.

So, the only thing we were able to do was reach out directly to our customers and post on social media.

And while the latter takes months to show results, we, of course, focused heavily on the first one.

We optimized it to the extreme.

Within a couple of months, we generated 7-figure revenues with a pipeline worth 8 figures - solely through emails combined with LinkedIn messages.

But nowadays, when I open my inbox, I get such crappy messages that I’m wondering what went wrong. With AI, everyone thinks they can send the same message to everyone and hope it will work somehow.

Spoiler: it doesn’t.

To make our outreach stick, it took a lot of testing and manual effort before we found a setup that worked.

And one thing is often overlooked and causes your messages to sound like impersonal, generic nonsense:

Buying signals.

Buying signals help you identify when someone is ready for your solution and really help you craft personal messages that stick.

The good thing is, while in the past you often had to look for these signals manually, AI can now help you find them and scan large lead lists to identify whether someone is ready to buy or not.

So for this article, here’s what we’ll cover:

• Which buying signals you should look for

• How to find them easily (with the help of AI)

• How to build an outreach flow that converts

• How to create ultra-personalized messages (using AI)

So let’s jump in.

PS: You still need to do a certain level of manual work… forget about feeding a lead list into a tool and hoping for the best. If you are not putting in the work, you won’t get results.

Which Buying Signals You Should Look For and How to Find Them

When it comes to buying signals, there are many.

Here, I break down the ones that helped us the most and how you can find them using AI.

For this, you need a tool called Phantombuster—you can do a lot with the free version, while the paid version costs €69 per month. But trust me, it’s worth it.

So, which buying signals should you look for?

1. Someone who interacts with your content (or content from someone who fits your industry/product)

For this, you have to create content regularly (obviously), but this one is powerful.

Let’s say you post about your business, industry, or things happening in your company or with your product.

Someone who likes or comments is naturally showing interest. These are some of my first go-to sources when it comes to finding interested leads.

Without you going manually to all of your likers, Phantombuster helps here:

Choose the following trigger:

Now you're asked to provide your source. You can either choose your company page or profile page and find a post there. You can search for a post directly or copy the URL of the post into the tool.

(The good thing: It doesn’t have to be your own post, which makes this even more powerful. You can scan through LinkedIn, look for posts that fit your target audience and topic, copy the URL, and start getting a list of all the people who engaged with it.)

The next step allows you to define your target audience using AI.

Let’s say 100 people interacted with your post, but you're only interested in startup founders based in Germany.

You just enter that into the fields in Phantombuster, and it will only provide you with the relevant people who liked the post.

(Phantombuster also handles variations, but try to be as precise as possible.)

After this, you get a list of all the people who interacted with your (or someone else’s) post that fit your criteria, and you can start reaching out to them.

How you reach out to that list, we'll discuss later.

2. Someone who posts about topics related to your industry/product

It’s the same here—if someone is actively posting about topics your product relates to, that indicates strong buying interest.

Let’s say someone is complaining about HR tools, posting about CRMs, or discussing anything your product addresses—this is a strong signal.

Phantombuster offers a tool that extracts posts and activities from a list of LinkedIn profiles.

You might ask: Where do I get a list of LinkedIn profiles?

The good thing is, Phantombuster lets you stack multiple tools together.

You have several options here. For example, you can scrape all accounts you're connected with, pull profiles from a LinkedIn search, or extract all members of a LinkedIn group.

The result: You get a list of leads with information like company, name, etc., as well as a link to their LinkedIn profile. This can be downloaded as a CSV file or saved directly in Phantombuster.

Now you can use it to find people who post about certain topics.

In the tool, simply select the list you scraped.

You choose which types of activities Phantombuster should export.

You choose the frequency… and this is important.

Naturally, LinkedIn and other social platforms don’t like it when you scrape data from them.

This means if you use it extensively and scrape too much data at once in a way that feels unnatural to LinkedIn’s algorithm, you risk getting kicked out. Therefore, it’s best to use the recommended settings from Phantombuster—this way, you're on the safe side.

Once it runs through, you get a CSV file with all the people you scraped and the content they posted.

Now, you want to find the ones who post about topics that align with your product and indicate buying readiness.

Jump into ChatGPT and let it analyze the list.

The result will be a list of profiles that fit your target audience and are ready for you to reach out to.

3. Being part of specific social media groups

Another way to find buying-ready leads is through social groups. We touched on this earlier when pulling data, but you can also use this method on its own.

Social groups are still popular—people join them to connect with like-minded individuals, discuss shared interests, and talk about their challenges.

That makes them perfect for finding leads who are already engaged and potentially ready to buy.

And Phantombuster lets you pull lead lists from these groups, whether it's a Facebook group or a LinkedIn group.

What you get here is a lead list of people + their LinkedIn profile URLs. You can then use another Phantombuster tool to enrich this list by pulling detailed information from each LinkedIn profile.

After that, scan through the data with ChatGPT to identify those who fit your target group, post relevant content, etc, and tada, you have leads you can reach out to.

4. Industry event or webinar

This is similar to posts and engagement—someone who is interested in events related to your industry or product is more likely to convert.

Phantombuster has you covered here as well:

4. Recent job Changes

This is a strong buying signal because someone who recently changed jobs is likely eager to succeed and show results.

If your product helps them achieve success in their new role, it's even more likely they’ll take an interest and be open to a conversation.

This can also be handled by using AI + Phantombuster.

Many people post about this—those "I got a new job" announcements—you know the type.

Once you have a list of profiles and a list of their posts, ask ChatGPT to scan through it and filter out those leads.

Now you have a list of people who recently got a new job—you can filter through it to see if their new role aligns with your product, giving you a strong indication that they may be ready to buy.

6. Funding round/investment

This one worked really well for us, even though it requires a certain amount of manual work.

But why is that?

Imagine a company in your industry just got funding, and your product could help them achieve X. Now you know two things:
a) they have a problem you can solve
b) they now have the budget to act on it.

Many companies go on a spending spree as soon as they receive funding, so it's easy for you to leverage this.

To find those companies, you can go to Crunchbase and scan through recent funding rounds and filter for companies that have recently raised capital. Now, gather them in a list.

But what do you do when you have a list of company names?

You jump into Phantombuster again and use this:

Once you have a list of LinkedIn company URLs, you use the next tool from Phantombuster.

Now you have a list of employees along with their LinkedIn URLs. You can filter out the target person you want to reach—most likely someone with a job title that fits your target group—and start sending messages.

7. Prospects coming to you

I’ve put this together in one section, just for the sake of completeness.

These are very strong buying signals, which is obvious, but they occur when someone comes to you, so you can’t actively look for them.

Those are things like:

• When someone converts on your website or books a demo

• When a CRM like HubSpot tracks site visits, and if one of your contacts visits a specific page, it can be a strong indicator they’re ready to buy or be contacted

• When someone fills out a form (for content or any other offer)

And so on.

I’m mainly talking here about signals that happen internally, but they are always strong signs of interest.

For all of the methods shown above, Phantombuster also offers tools for Instagram and Facebook that work in basically the same way.

So if your target group is active on those platforms, there’s a good chance Phantombuster can help you there as well.

How to Build an Outreach Flow That Converts

The result of each buying signal and each Phantombuster scrape is a list of potential leads, with some useful data, and most importantly, their LinkedIn profile URLs.

Which means: we can work with it.

But when it comes to sending messages, we don’t want to manually send 100 messages. Ideally, we want to automate this as much as possible.

Luckily, Phantombuster offers an option for that.

Here, you can build message flows to automatically reach out to your lead lists.

And it starts with sending out connection requests.

Here, you also have the option to personalize the invitation messages. However, this is something you'll need to test—I personally experienced a slightly higher acceptance rate when I sent invitations without a message (don’t ask me why).

So I would say: don’t put too much effort into this step. Remove the checkmark and skip the message if you don’t have anything important to say right at the beginning.

After that, you can set up your follow-up messages.

Phantombuster offers some personalization options using tags like {firstName}, {lastName}, and more.

These become helpful when it comes to crafting the actual messages (which we will discuss below).

Most people are more likely to respond after the second or third message. If you send more, you’ll likely lose them.

Anyway, Phantombuster allows only 3 follow-up messages, which is enough.

The first follow-up message should be sent after 1–2 days. Wait 3 days before sending the second one, and another 3 days before sending the third.

This timing gave me the highest response rate.

And statistic shows it:

What if I want to combine it with email?

I want to include this because I’ve had good experiences with it, but note that it will cost an additional tool and probably another €69 per month, so it’s understandable if you want to skip it.

For this, we use Lemlist (or other tools) to create multi-step outreach sequences.

What you can do here includes sending emails, LinkedIn messages, visiting profiles, and even sending voice messages—basically, everything that helps you convert a lead.

The nice thing is, you can easily import the leads you scraped with Phantombuster and combine these tools in a way.

With Lemlist, you can then enrich the leads and let it find their email addresses.

This way, you can create outreach flows using both email and LinkedIn messages, which, in turn, are more likely to convert.

As you probably know from experience, LinkedIn can be full of spam, so email may be more effective in some cases.

How to Create Ultra-Personalized Messages (Using AI)

We now have a flow that engages leads with the right number of messages, and we’ve identified different buying signals to pinpoint the right time to reach out. Now, the key piece is still missing: a message that sticks.

To create this, we use ChatGPT

We aim for a short and crisp outreach message, because no one wants to scroll through a page-long email. And thanks to our buying signals, it gets super personalized event with AI.

So, we use this prompt:

Craft a short, sharply personalized cold outreach message (max 60 words)  
for [put in target group].

Start by referencing a specific, timely trigger and elaborate on it: [put in buying signal].

Briefly explain what your solution does [put in your product description]and delivers [put in outcomes you achieved].

Close with a soft, helpful next step — like a question, free insight, or resource —  to spark a reply without pressure.

Ad tags like {fristName} or {companyName} for personalization - and other if you think they are relevant.

Tone: Respectful, strategic, and value-focused, make it like you talk to a human in a conversation.

This could look like this:

Craft a short, sharply personalized cold outreach message (max 60 words) for sustainability manager. 

Start by referencing a specific, timely trigger and elaborte on it: started a new job position. Briefly explain what your solution does platform to measure co2 emissions and helps company to reduce it by 20%. 

Close with a soft, helpful next step — like a question, free insight, or resource — to spark a reply without pressure. 

Ad tags like {fristName} or {companyName} for personalization - and other if you think they are relevant. Tone: Respectful, strategic, and value-focused, make it like you talk to a human in a conversation.

And the outcome is this message:

Subject: Congrats on your new role at {companyName}, {firstName}

Hi {firstName}, saw you just stepped into the Sustainability Manager role—congrats! Thought I’d reach out: we help teams like yours measure CO₂ emissions and cut them by up to 20% with our platform.

Would it be helpful if I shared a quick benchmark from similar companies in your industry?

One that feels natural and addresses the pain points someone faces in their new role.

For the second follow-up message, we simply add in the same chat:

create a 2nd follow up message

And ChatGPT generates an example with a use case here, which, in my experience, works pretty well.

Subject: Quick follow-up, {firstName}

Hi {firstName}, just wanted to circle back in case my last note got buried.

Happy to share how {similarCompanyName} used our platform to reduce emissions by 18% in under a year—could be a useful reference as you settle into your role at {companyName}.

Would a quick 10-minute chat be useful sometime next week?

For the 3rd one:

Create a third one that says something like you won’t follow up anymore if the lead isn’t interested, but again highlight how it would help.

And we get this:

Subject: Final note, {firstName} — promise I’ll drop off after this

Hi {firstName}, I haven’t heard back, so I’ll assume it’s not a fit right now and won’t reach out again.

Just wanted to say—we’ve helped sustainability teams cut CO₂ emissions by 20% and simplify tracking with far less manual work.

If that ever sounds useful at {companyName}, I’m here.

This flow and type of messaging helped us generate a huge part of our revenue.

BUT: your solution and topics must be highly relevant to your target audience, otherwise you won’t hear back.

Here’s one bonus tip (because these kinds of messages above will always feel salesy, and you won’t be able to get rid of that):

I know everyone wants to reduce manual effort to a minimum.

But the main goal of outreach should be to spark a conversation, build a connection, convert them in a call, and not make a direct sale … that part requires manual work.

So if you are willing to put in the effort, let’s use the following prompt:

Craft a short, sharply personalized cold outreach message (max 30 words).

Start by referencing a specific, timely trigger and elaborate on it and mention personal similarities: [put in buying signal].

Ad tags like {fristName} or {companyName} for personalization - and other if you think they are relevant.

Tone: Respectful, strategic, and value-focused, make it like you talk to a human in a conversation.

Goal: start a conversation

Avoid things like "Curious how..." or "we’ve helped similar..." just show geniunly interest or compliments

End with a question 

Let’s put in an example like the buying signal funding round:

Craft a short, sharply personalized cold outreach message (max 30 words).

Start by referencing a specific, timely trigger and elaborate on it and mention personal similarities: new funding round.

Ad tags like {fristName} or {companyName} for personalization - and other if you think they are relevant.

Tone: Respectful, strategic, and value-focused, make it like you talk to a human in a conversation.
Goal: start a conversation

Avoid things like "Curious how..." or "we’ve helped similar..." just show geniunly interest or compliments

End with a question 

And the message we get is this:

Congrats on {companyName}’s recent funding — huge milestone. As a fellow founder who scaled post-Series A, I’d love to swap notes on hiring smart at speed. What’s top of mind right now, {firstName}?

It feels human to me. Of course, you’ll have to adapt it to your story, but this will most likely open a conversation. From there, you can then manually start a chat and try to get them in a call.

Last Words

If you really want to get the most out of your outreach, you have to put in the (manual) work.

Outreach works best when you have:

• The right timing

• The right message

• The right offer

With the steps in this article, you’ll at least cover the first two. I’m sure you’ve got the last one. 😊

So please—avoid the spray-and-pray approach. It not only harms your email deliverability but also your brand. Put in the work, and make your outreach a success.

See you next week 👋🏼

PS: If you enjoyed this breakdown, please tap the like button and let me know in the comments below. Thank you! 💛

One thing that was on our minds: how do we capture demand immediately on our website?

Of course, alongside a launch campaign and go-to-market strategy, we thought it would be smart to have something in place as soon as someone lands on our site.

So, we experimented with this element on our website.

Hypothesis

Our hypothesis we wanted to test was:

If we place a pop-up in the above-the-fold section of our website (where the hero image is), we can capture interest from:
A) people who visit our website after seeing our announcement/launch campaign, and
B) people who already know us and are curious about our new product.

Experiment Design

We placed a small one-line pop-up in the header of our website with a concise value proposition. It opened one second after someone landed on the website.

Clicking on it led users to a form where they could add themselves to the waiting list for the product launch.

Results

This experiment ran from December 4, 2024, to May 1, 2025.

It generated 398 clicks.

From those clicks, we captured 64 leads.

Conversion rate from clicks to leads: 16.08%.

Those 64 leads gave us a solid base of interested users. Of course, the number could have been higher, but we weren’t actively focusing on optimizing the pop-up.

Alongside our other activities for the new product, it was simply there as a passive capture tool.

Take aways

Think about this:

You want to capture demand from people who are interested in what you talk about on social media. In our case, it was a new product. And where do you capture that demand?

Right - usually on your website.

But instead of letting someone click through the whole site to the respective pages, we decided to try capturing them as soon as they landed on it.

See you next time! 👋🏼

PS: If you enjoyed this experiment, please tap the like button and let me know in the comments below. Thank you! 💛

At the same time, the company published a blog article called “GPT-4.1 Prompting Guide”. It breaks down how to get the best results from your work with AI.

While the article looks pretty technical, I came across Greg Isenberg’s summary of it, which sums it up in an easy-to-digest way.

Most of what you’ll read here already applies to the models we’re currently working with.

But when I look at my own use cases, it still feels like a few pieces are missing, especially when it comes to using it for marketing.

So, I thought I’d share my two cents on how I prompt to create killer marketing.

How to Prompt For Marketing

I want to make one thing clear from the beginning:

If you can’t distinguish good marketing from bad marketing, and you don’t know what strong copy or a solid marketing strategy looks like, AI won’t help you. It can scale your marketing, but it can’t (at least not yet) do the heavy lifting and figure out what good marketing means for your target group.

1. Precision Prompting

When it comes to marketing, the more precise your prompts, the more on-brand, conversion-oriented, and useful your outputs will be.

• Be literal, not vague: Say exactly what you want to do (e.g., “Write a high-converting Google ad headline in under 30 characters for eco-friendly shoes”).

• Use delimiters for clarity: Structure prompt sections using markdown, bullet points, or tags to help AI parse complex tasks like campaign briefs or competitor analysis.

• Bookend your prompts: For longer tasks like content calendars or email series, restate your goal at the end of the prompt for more consistent results.

Looking like this:

Goal:
Write a high-converting Instagram caption to promote a new vegan leather handbag collection for a sustainable fashion brand.

Requirements:

- Tone: Stylish, modern, confident

- Character limit: Max 150 characters

- Include 1 call-to-action (CTA)

- Mention sustainability or cruelty-free angle

- Target audience: Eco-conscious millennial women, 25–35 years old

- Style reference: Similar to captions from brands like Stella McCartney or Matt & Nat

Format:

1 short, punchy caption

No hashtags

CTA at the end (e.g., "Shop now", "See the collection")

Goal (Restated):
Deliver a stylish, conversion-optimized Instagram caption under 150 characters that promotes the vegan leather handbag collection and motivates eco-conscious women to take action.

2. Use Step-by-Step Thinking

For marketing strategy, planning, and multi-touch campaigns, Marketers often work on tasks that require logical flows, like building a product funnel, lead nurturing, or a content plan.

To get the most out of it here:

• Induce “thinking”: Add lines like “Let’s work this out step by step” or “First, create a high-level plan, then break it down.”

• Agentic behavior: Prompt to act like a project manager - “Keep going until the entire campaign flow is mapped out.”

• Force tool use: Ask it to “reference industry benchmarks” or “compare against existing personas” to ground it in structured thinking.

Looking like this:

Goal:
Develop a complete 5-day email drip campaign for launching a new line of biodegradable running shoes by a sustainable lifestyle brand.

Task Breakdown:
Start with a high-level plan:

Outline the goal and structure of the drip campaign

Define the audience persona (eco-conscious runners, 20–40, value design + impact)

Reference industry benchmarks (e.g., Allbirds, Veja email flows)

Then break it down step by step:

Write subject lines (max 50 characters, high open-rate focus)

Email copy (100–150 words each, benefit-first)

Include one CTA per email

Suggest optimal send times

Constraints & Style Guide:

Brand voice: Smart, sustainable, motivating

Avoid jargon, stay conversational

Emails must build momentum (awareness → consideration → conversion)

Use bullet points or short paragraphs for readability

Include comparisons to typical synthetic shoes when relevant

Action Plan:
Act like a campaign strategist and copywriter. Keep going until the entire campaign flow is complete.
Let’s work this out step by step.

Final Goal (Restated):
Create a fully mapped, high-converting 5-day email drip campaign for biodegradable running shoes using structured thinking and grounded in industry best practices.

3. Your Tone, Your Content

Most AI models have this typical sounding AI style with many superlatives and fillers. But when you want to scale your content, that feels like your content, feed him with information.

• Fine-tune with examples: What I always do is I give one or two examples from how my previous posts or content sounds and ask to replicate that style.

• Explicitly say it should stay in tone: To make sure AI then uses it, I provide commands like “Only use the provided brand style guide/examples for tone”.

• Avoid hallucinations: If AI makes things up, I repeat this in every other prompt.

4. Format Like a Marketer

What I recognized is that AI output differs when you give context on which platform it is used. So, since then, depending on what I want to create, I give additional context.

• Define output expectations: “Return this as a Google Ads table with Headline 1, Headline 2, and Description.”

• Guide for platform optimization: Tailor prompts based on where the content will live e.g., “This content will be used as Reel, LinkedIn carousel, Instagram post…”

• Let AI do content optimization: When I feel that the content is still lacking information or formatting, I add “Use basic industry knowledge to fill gaps”, “Use typical formatting that fits [platform the content is used on] nature”.

5. Content Creation at Scale

AI always gives you crappy content when you ask it to "create a blog article about topic XYZ". There’s no personal view, no experience, and nothing unique in that.

Where I do use AI to create content is when I already have something, like a webinar, or a study/article, for example. I upload the transcript and have it turned into blog posts or social media content. When used properly, AI can generate a large amount of quality content quickly.

• Distill key learnings: When uploading a transcript, I ask the AI for key insights, the personal views of person XY, and strong opinions. That way, you get the hot takes, the stuff that’s interesting to your audience.

• Tailor content to your audience: I use a GPT called “User Persona Generator.” With it, I have my customer personas completely mapped out. When I create content with AI, I copy/paste parts (or the full persona) for context and give prompts like: “Adapt this content to the following customer profile.”

• Refine through iteration: I ask AI to revise outputs based on feedback, like “Make this copy more benefit-driven” or “Highlight features relevant to the target audience”. AI is actually really good at doing this, I was surprised the first time I tried this.

One extra point:

As for my process, I prompt in smaller chunks. I start by outlining the task with the instructions above, and then I iterate using smaller prompts and inputs, meaning, in follow-up prompts, I give one task at a time.

I’ve found that this helps the AI keep track of everything more effectively.

Final Words

AI is a powerful assistant, but like any other tool, it performs best with clear direction, especially when the person giving that direction knows what they’re doing. For marketers, that means learning how to prompt with structure, context, clarity, and intent.

But let’s face it:

Even today, AI can already replace marketers. All you need is one experienced generalist who understands what good marketing looks like (and how to use AI), and the outcome they produce with AI is better than what most junior specialists can deliver. So, using it isn’t optional anymore—it’s unavoidable.

See you next week 👋🏼

PS: If you enjoyed this newsletter, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

When was the last time you paid attention to it?

If you're like many, it's probably been a while.

Often treated as a digital afterthought, the footer can significantly influence user engagement and conversion rates.

Ignoring it might mean missing out on valuable opportunities to guide visitors and boost your site's performance.

The Hack

And as we all are on the hunt for better results, you might not want to miss out, right?

So, revamping your footer can lead to notable improvements.

Here's how:

Enhance Navigation

Nowadays, users are so used to having a footer that not having one, or having a bad one, isn’t an option.

A well-organized footer serves as a safety net, guiding visitors to essential pages. This means you should link the most important pages of your website in your footer.

What you're doing here is rebuilding your navigation… just in a smaller, cuter version that lives at the bottom of the page like a little tour guide.

I won’t tell you anything new when I say that having links to your product, services, resources, and so on helps guide your visitors in the right direction.

But what I can tell you - one thing I’ve learned during my modest career - is that having these links in your footer is super useful:

• Contact

• About Us

• FAQs

• Social Media Accounts

Because those are the pages and actions people often want to take after visiting your site.

Encourage Action

In the last 8 years, I’ve managed 7 website relaunches/renovations.

Next to more and more grey hairs along the way, I had endless discussions. One of them was whether or not to place a newsletter subscription at the end of the footer.

In the first websites I built, I was clearly against it - my young marketing brain thought, “Nobody will care what’s at the end of your footer.”

Until one day, I was convinced (or forced) by my supervisor.

So we added it, and over time, we saw a significant number of subscribers (compared to other placements on the site) coming from the form placed in the footer.

Since then, I have always included a newsletter form in the footer, and you should too.

Build Trust

Incorporate trust signals, such as awards, certifications, Product Hunt logos, reviews, or whatever you have that builds trust, into the footer.

Highlighting achievements here can motivate users to engage more deeply with your content or services.

This is important because many users scroll to the end of your website (according to statistics, 45% scroll to the bottom of a page).

And it might just be that someone decides not to click that little “X” on the tab and instead checks out another page because of it - or at least leaves thinking, “Hey, these folks know what they’re doing.” Either way, you win.

The Result

Optimizing your website's footer can lead to measurable improvements.

Whether it's guiding users in the right direction, creating trust, or capturing their email address before they leave, a well-thought-out footer is super helpful.

It also enhances your site's search engine optimization by improving internal linking structures, as it helps Google’s tiny little website crawlers find their way through your site more accurately.

The Takeaway

While it resides at the bottom of your site, the footer holds significant potential to enhance user experience, build trust, and drive conversions.

By giving it the attention it deserves, you can turn this overlooked section into a strategic asset that contributes to your website's success:

• Rebuild your navigation here

• Include trust signals

• Add a call to action, like a newsletter signup

And just like that, your footer is good to go.

See you next week! 👋🏼

PS: If you enjoyed this growth hack, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

They say things like Submit, Learn More, or Click Here.

But let’s be honest - why should anybody care?

Sure, if the context is right where you placed the CTA, the chances aren’t bad.

But your audience is busy and bombarded with options. And CTAs are responsible for driving action.

Meaning, if your CTA isn’t clear, they’re gone.

The Hack

That’s why you should craft your CTAs in a way that users never have to think twice about clicking it.

Your call to actions should be:

• Clear – Say exactly what the user will get.

• Precise – Avoid vague words.

• Outcome-driven – Show the benefit of clicking.

For example:

• Instead of Submit, say "Get My Free Report."

• Instead of Learn More, say "See How It Works."

• Instead of Click Here, say "Start Your Free Trial Today."

Let’s take a look at some CTAs in action (what a wordplay):

For example, the startup Hops uses a strong outcome-driven call to action for their solution:

Stripe also does this well by making their CTA highly contextual. When introducing their billing solution, they seamlessly incorporate it into their call to action:

Or take Canva - we covered this in one of my recent articles. Each use case gets its own outcome-driven call to action on Canva’s website, like this one for video editing.

The Result

I know, I know.

You might be thinking, "You can overcomplicate call to actions, and I don’t want to overthink it."

But clear, outcome-driven CTAs lead to higher engagement, better conversion rates, and increased trust with your audience.

Don’t believe me? I’ve got you covered - I found some statistics to back it up:

• Using calls to action in general can increase conversion rates by 161%.

• Placing the CTA button at the end of a product page can increase conversions by 70%.

• Increasing the size of the CTA button can boost click-through rates by 90%.

• And now, the key point of this article: using a specific, clear CTA can increase conversion rates by 161%.

Takeaway

So next time you’re naming your call to action, maybe think twice.

When your CTA is clear, users don’t have to guess - they know exactly what to do and why it benefits them. This reduces friction, builds trust, and increases conversions.

Why does it work?

• People are lazy – If they have to think, they won’t click.

• Clarity converts – The more obvious the action, the more likely they are to take it.

• It creates urgency – A strong CTA makes the next step feel inevitable.

See you next week! 👋🏼

PS: If you enjoyed this growth hack, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

Most businesses make the same mistake: They talk about what they do in a way that confuses their audience.

For framing their value proposition they use jargon. They ramble. They assume people will just "get it."

But people don’t. And they won’t. Because they’re busy, overwhelmed, and bombarded with options.

So, no wonder that only 14% of the value propositions are relevant enough to prompt the customer to take action - according to this study.

But, luckily, there’s a straightforward way to fix this.

Here is how.

The Hack

Instead of overcomplicating things, use this framework to craft your value proposition:

We do [X] for [Y], so they can [Z]

Here are a couple of examples:

• Bookkeeping company for freelancers: We do automated bookkeeping for freelancers, so they can focus on their work, not their taxes.

• Sales tool: We do AI-powered scheduling for sales teams, so they can close more deals instead of managing calendars.

• Fitness company: We do on-demand fitness coaching for busy professionals, so they can stay in shape without rearranging their lives.

The Result & How To Implement This (Right Now)

See how clear that is?

No fluff. Just instant clarity.

So, how can you implement this right away?

1. Write down what you do in one sentence. Keep it simple.

2. Refine it using the "We do [X] for [Y], so they can [Z]" format. Get rid of jargon.

3. Use it everywhere. Your website, LinkedIn, emails, ads—everywhere people find you.

And you won’t confuse your customers anymore.

One thing I want to highlight here: Everyone on the internet tells you to keep your sentences as short as possible, BUT here you should focus on clarity, not just brevity.

If you have two sentences instead of one, or ten words instead of four - nobody cares.

Trust me.

Takeaway

This formula:

• Forces clarity. If you can’t fit your value into this structure, you’re not clear enough.

• Makes your audience care. People don’t buy features, they buy outcomes. This focuses on the outcome.

• Is stupidly easy to remember. That means your customers can repeat it (which means free marketing for you).

Most businesses struggle to explain what they do. The ones that don’t? They win.

So, what’s your We do [X] for [Y], so they can [Z]?

See you next week! 👋🏼

PS: If you enjoyed this growth hack, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

So, I assume you want to win over your competitors, right?

There’s one thing that is becoming increasingly important:

Trust and credibility.

Nobody will invest in you or your product if you don’t earn their trust.

Fortunately, there are a few steps you can take to build it.

And one of them can be implemented directly on your website.

Here is how.

The Hack

The first thing everyone sees when arriving at your website is your header — also called the “above-the-fold” area.

This space is where you grab attention. And you have just a few seconds to convince your visitor to scroll further.

Means you have to nail it here.

So, why not use this space to create trust right away?

I stumbled across a startup called Seamailer that is doing this in a super cool way:

They are using their header to include several trust-creating elements (highlighted in the red box).

So, next to the call-to-action, we see:

• Product Hunt logos

  • Indicating Product of the Week and Product of the Day,

• Mentioning trust-building features such as:

  • No card required

  • Start for free

  • 24/7 support

The Result

All of this creates a great feeling when you're considering trying the solution.

You know they won’t ask for payment right away. The 24/7 support reassures you that help is always available if you have questions. And you can start for free, no strings attached.

The Product Hunt logos add strong social credibility.

In my opinion, a great way to tell your visitors, “Hey, our solution is legitimate — not a scam.”

Takeaway

As mentioned at the beginning, creating trust is more important than ever.

The header is one of the best places to build trust before someone scrolls further down — just like Seamailer does.

If you're wondering what to put there if you don’t have a Product Hunt logo, consider using a testimonial, a five-star rating, a quote from the press, or something similar.

When combined with small indicators like “Start for free” or “No credit card required,” your header becomes a powerful tool that encourages people to keep reading.

That’s for today. See you next week!

If you enjoyed this growth hack, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

So, the question is: how can you solve this?

For that, we’re looking at Notion. Notion is a highly versatile tool with countless use cases, and it excels at solving this exact problem.

Here is how.

The Hack

When we look at Notion’s website, we see how the company simplifies the decision-making process for its users.

In sections where the tool is explained, Notion adds logos of well-known tools that can be replaced by Notion's features.

The Result

This approach makes the website much more intuitive for users. It eliminates guesswork and makes the copy even clearer—meaning no confusion at all.

It helps by showing how the product compares to competitors and highlighting its unique strengths.

This simple trick can significantly improve a website’s copy and, ultimately, its conversion rate.

Takeaway

When creating your website or landing page, make it as easy as possible for users to understand your value.

By adding sections that reference well-known tools - like Notion does, you can highlight your advantages and make your offering stand out.

That’s it for today’s Growth Bite—see you next week!

If you enjoyed this growth hack, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛